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Once again a discussion at the coffee break posed an interesting question. Is this the closest the relegated teams have been to each other in the history of the Premier league. Some quick googling suggested it probably wasn’t and 2011-12 would be the closest with the 3 relegated clubs being Bolton Wanderers,Blackburn Rovers and Wolves. And much like last time I wasn’t content with guesswork and wanted to try and calculate this properly.

As a Norwich City fan relegation is something I’ve grown very used to

From the previous blog post I had the locations for all of the football league grounds ( one caveat is that i haven’t considered that the clubs may have played at a different ground [although I did use Selhurst Park for Wimbledon and not Milton Keynes ) . so it was a very simple piece of analysis where i used PostGIS to calculate the distance between each of the relegated clubs and summed the value together per year.

From the results below you can see that the guess was correct and 2011-12 did have the shortest distance with 16-17 coming second.

In recent years, television broadcasters have pumped more and more money into the football industry, resulting in Premier League clubs in particular receiving both more TV money and more TV coverage. This extra coverage, however, has come at a cost to the fan on the terrace. There are more and more instances of last-minute fixture alterations being made to accommodate televised games. These last-minute changes often result in fans having to rebook travel plans, getting home even later, or in some cases staying overnight in a hotel. I personally remember having to rebook trains twice, and book and subsequently cancel accommodation (losing my deposit) as an Aston Villa vs Norwich City game had its kick-off time changed twice because of TV.

In previous work we have investigated the travel times of football fans and how they could be affected by fixture changes. This looked at the additional time and difficult faced by travelling supporters but did not consider the cost of these changes. Therefore in this piece of work we wanted to determine which fixture changes would result in the biggest cost increase for a fan travelling to the game by public transport. For this we used an API from British Rail Fares Queries (http://www.brfares.com/api/ ) which allowed us to determine the both the cheapest possible advance tickets and the cheapest possible ticket that a fan could buy on the day. As in the previous work, the Google Travel API (https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/distance-matrix/) was used to determine the amount of time travelling and whether a fan would have to stay overnight either the night before or after a match.

As we didn’t want to just consider the cost of new rail tickets but the cost of having to potentially spend more leisure time travelling to and from the game due to the fixture change, we wanted to apply a “cost” to the fan for each extra minute spent travelling. The Department for Transport determined a value of £8 per hour for a non-work related journey using their ‘Value of Time method (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/313222/webtag-tag-unit-a1-3-user-and-provider-impacts.pdf).We consequently applied this cost to the time a fan would spend travelling to and from the game to give an approximate monetary value.

Hartlepool fans on their yearly fancy dress trip

Finally, if the fixture meant a fan would have to stay overnight we added an extra £50 to the journey cost to represent an approximate value of a night in a cheap hotel. Whilst all of these costs make assumptions (that the supporter is diligent enough to buy the cheapest available Advance ticket to travel to the match when they are initially released, that the rearranged game means the purchase of an Off-peak ticket rather than another Advance ticket, that they will not be able to stay with friends) they are a first attempt at capturing the extra personal cost of these TV fixture moves.

With the release of the 2016-17 football league fixtures we thought it would be interesting to carry out a similar piece of analysis to the work we did looking at the Premiership fixtures by looking at the effect of moving fixtures on travelling fans.

Already it appears sky sports has not considered the travelling away fans by making the first friday night game Fulham vs Newcastle United with there being no means that the Toon Army could make a return trip on public transport without getting in at close to 6am. A long trip if it returns no points.

Norwich Fans getting the train to Wembley (happy days….)

Like previously, I used the Google Travel Matrix API to look at the journeys on public transport fans would need to make to get both to and from the game. The kickoff times I analysed were as follows:

Saturday 12:30

Saturday 17:15

Sunday 12:00

Sunday 16:30

Again as before I considered a fixtures t following tables show which fixtures would fail the test of either requiring a fan to leave before 7am or arrive home after midnight.

Unlike last time though I also considered weekday kickoffs at 19:45. Here I used a slightly different test were it was considered a failed fixture if it either required a fan to leave before 5pm (before end of work) or arrive home after 3am.

I then went through the Championship fixtures and test each one with the results being below.

If you think you or someone else would be interested in exploring the science behind this work, you should have a look at the Newcastle University degrees in BSc Geographic Information Science and BSc Surveying and Mapping Science. These degrees have excellent employment prospects, lots of field and practical work and consistently high levels of student satisfaction. I myself am a graduate of the GIS programme

For many years, the geomatics group at Newcastle University has delivered CPD courses for teachers. The courses have focussed on both surveying and GIS at various times and have been delivered both in Newcastle and elsewhere including Surrey, Oxfordshire and Inverness-shire. With the rise of GIS in GCSE and A-Level curriculums our Introduction to GIS for Teachers course has become increasingly popular. We have also found a great ally in Paul Baker from the Geographical Association who has helped to promote our courses and identify schools around the country who can host us.

Our most recent course ran on Friday 03 June at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire with teachers from Ampleforth, Sheffield High School, Ashville College, Hymers College and Priesthorpe School.

In the course we covered:

An introduction to GIS

Exploring geohazards including downloading and plotting data directly from the US Geological Survey website

Using the GB Fieldtrip app (in the stunning college and abbey grounds!)
Analysing Indices of Deprivation data using GIS

A plenary where we used some provocative questions to help the delegates to reflect on the role of geography in their school and to consider cross-curricular potential of GIS

One of the questions we are always asked at these events is why do we do them? And why are they free? Our answer is in three parts:

GIS is a subject we all enjoy, see great potential in, and we want to help spread the word.

As a University, we should be good neighbours and ensure that we provide support to schools and teachers.

The reality is that our two degree courses, BSc Geographic Information Science and BSc Surveying and Mapping Science continue to attract low numbers of students and we hope that these courses will raise awareness of them in schools.

It was another great day and hopefully a few more teachers are now a little more confident and excited about using GIS in their teaching.

Finally, many thanks to Ceri Dent (Head of Geography at Ampleforth College) for hosting us. The computer cluster, facilities, catering and setting were all fantastic. Thanks, Ceri!

There’s an ever increasing debate in football at the moment about whether TV is effecting both the atmosphere and the attendance of football matches. Often kick-offs at times other than 3pm on a Saturday mean painfully early mornings or demoralizing late train rides for the away fan. Or even worse journeys simply not being possible on public transport. Having previously looked at how long it takes to travel on public transport to a 3 o’clock kickoffs we thought it would be an interesting piece of analysis to look at the potential effect of different kick-off times on all of next year’s Premier League fixtures.

Fans Protest Kick off time changes

Having spent 2 seasons with an away season ticket my ideal away trip meant not having to get up before 9am and getting home in time for match of the day (although being a Norwich City fan I found this difficult viewing at times). But living in the north-east I would generally regard not before 7am or home after midnight as a palatable away day. So in order to test fixtures wouldn’t pass this parameters, using the google travel matrix api, I calculated away journey on public transport for all fixtures with the following kick-off times:

12:45pm Saturday

5:50pm Saturday

1pm Sunday

4pm Sunday

The following tables show which fixtures would fail the test of either leaving before 7am or arriving home after midnight.

Failed 12:45pm Saturday Kick-offs

fixture

Time Leaving ‘Home’

Time arriving ‘Home’

Bournemouth V Burnley

06:00:42

21:28:18

Bournemouth V Everton

06:54:21

20:38:53

Bournemouth V Liverpool

06:52:01

20:50:13

Bournemouth V Middlesbrough

06:37:03

20:59:57

Bournemouth V Sunderland

06:11:55

21:16:05

Burnley V Bournemouth

05:51:14

21:12:02

Burnley V Swansea

06:23:04

21:13:31

Everton V Bournemouth

06:42:22

20:10:23

Hull City V Bournemouth

06:41:25

20:50:32

Hull City V Swansea

06:06:02

21:14:57

Liverpool V Bournemouth

06:37:22

20:15:23

Manchester United V Bournemouth

06:55:34

20:08:07

Middlesbrough V Bournemouth

06:28:06

21:17:35

Middlesbrough V Swansea

05:17:00

21:42:00

Southampton V Burnley

06:19:03

21:11:57

Southampton V Sunderland

06:35:16

21:06:44

Sunderland V Bournemouth

05:46:51

21:12:54

Sunderland V Southampton

06:16:44

20:44:34

Sunderland V Swansea

04:38:22

22:00:19

Swansea V Burnley

06:13:57

20:52:18

Swansea V Hull City

05:48:57

21:11:34

Swansea V Middlesbrough

05:32:20

21:59:42

Swansea V Sunderland

05:19:12

22:12:50

Failed 5:30pm Saturday Kick-offs

fixture

Time Leaving ‘Home’

Time arriving ‘Home’

Arsenal V Burnley

13:19:07

00:05:13 + (1 day)

Arsenal V Everton

14:25:29

02:45:17 + (1 day)

Arsenal V Hull City

14:15:53

05:50:55 + (1 day)

Arsenal V Liverpool

14:22:16

02:39:59 + (1 day)

Arsenal V Middlesbrough

13:59:33

03:43:37 + (1 day)

Arsenal V Swansea

13:25:53

04:10:42 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Burnley

10:27:37

05:58:03 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Everton

11:35:07

05:16:47 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Hull City

11:52:23

09:09:51 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Leicester City

13:08:57

03:52:04 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Liverpool

11:32:47

05:11:29 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Manchester City

11:46:12

05:30:11 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Manchester United

11:34:37

05:02:49 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Middlesbrough

11:23:03

08:41:57 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Stoke City

12:16:49

06:18:39 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Sunderland

10:32:38

09:26:05 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Swansea

12:29:23

07:07:12 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V WBA

13:30:02

02:53:28 + (1 day)

Burnley V Arsenal

13:46:48

04:30:40 + (1 day)

Burnley V Bournemouth

11:09:10

06:32:19 + (1 day)

Burnley V Chelsea

13:23:46

04:19:39 + (1 day)

Burnley V Crystal Palace

13:09:38

04:59:26 + (1 day)

Burnley V Hull City

14:30:34

07:09:23 + (1 day)

Burnley V Leicester City

13:05:38

02:40:48 + (1 day)

Burnley V Middlesbrough

13:57:56

04:23:24 + (1 day)

Burnley V Southampton

11:27:01

06:12:05 + (1 day)

Burnley V Stoke City

14:43:18

04:18:11 + (1 day)

Burnley V Sunderland

13:27:48

04:12:30 + (1 day)

Burnley V Swansea

11:02:26

09:25:57 + (1 day)

Burnley V Tottenham Hotspur

13:35:31

04:37:29 + (1 day)

Burnley V Watford

13:10:20

04:43:47 + (1 day)

Burnley V WBA

14:08:03

01:44:10 + (1 day)

Burnley V West Ham

13:05:33

05:15:27 + (1 day)

Chelsea V Burnley

13:00:25

03:59:18 + (1 day)

Chelsea V Everton

13:59:22

03:10:59 + (1 day)

Chelsea V Hull City

13:47:09

05:47:03 + (1 day)

Chelsea V Liverpool

13:56:09

03:05:41 + (1 day)

Chelsea V Manchester City

14:16:34

03:31:26 + (1 day)

Chelsea V Manchester United

14:04:59

03:36:54 + (1 day)

Chelsea V Middlesbrough

13:33:51

04:03:22 + (1 day)

Chelsea V Stoke City

14:39:13

03:19:54 + (1 day)

Chelsea V Sunderland

12:49:43

04:01:20 + (1 day)

Chelsea V Swansea

13:40:11

03:53:01 + (1 day)

Crystal Palace V Burnley

12:45:52

04:05:21 + (1 day)

Crystal Palace V Everton

13:32:58

03:24:05 + (1 day)

Crystal Palace V Hull City

13:35:38

06:36:43 + (1 day)

Crystal Palace V Liverpool

13:30:38

03:18:47 + (1 day)

Crystal Palace V Manchester City

14:02:03

03:37:29 + (1 day)

Crystal Palace V Manchester United

13:50:28

03:55:24 + (1 day)

Crystal Palace V Middlesbrough

13:16:11

04:16:59 + (1 day)

Crystal Palace V Stoke City

14:24:33

03:27:31 + (1 day)

Crystal Palace V Sunderland

12:32:03

04:15:57 + (1 day)

Crystal Palace V Swansea

12:52:31

04:34:04 + (1 day)

Everton V Arsenal

14:22:56

03:03:32 + (1 day)

Everton V Bournemouth

11:47:18

05:14:21 + (1 day)

Everton V Chelsea

13:35:11

02:27:58 + (1 day)

Everton V Crystal Palace

13:54:46

03:32:03 + (1 day)

Everton V Hull City

13:27:42

06:11:45 + (1 day)

Everton V Leicester City

13:49:50

03:32:52 + (1 day)

Everton V Middlesbrough

13:43:52

03:57:18 + (1 day)

Everton V Southampton

12:31:57

04:54:07 + (1 day)

Everton V Sunderland

12:54:44

03:46:24 + (1 day)

Everton V Swansea

11:40:34

08:07:59 + (1 day)

Everton V Tottenham Hotspur

13:45:05

03:14:21 + (1 day)

Everton V Watford

14:02:32

04:31:38 + (1 day)

Everton V West Ham

13:40:41

03:34:12 + (1 day)

Hull City V Arsenal

14:19:23

03:25:13 + (1 day)

Hull City V Bournemouth

11:11:32

06:43:58 + (1 day)

Hull City V Chelsea

13:34:40

03:19:12 + (1 day)

Hull City V Crystal Palace

13:10:04

04:00:44 + (1 day)

Hull City V Everton

13:47:50

04:19:08 + (1 day)

Hull City V Leicester City

14:09:15

02:38:02 + (1 day)

Hull City V Liverpool

13:43:30

04:13:50 + (1 day)

Hull City V Southampton

11:55:26

06:23:44 + (1 day)

Hull City V Stoke City

13:32:02

05:21:00 + (1 day)

Hull City V Swansea

10:55:41

09:37:36 + (1 day)

Hull City V Tottenham Hotspur

13:43:08

03:32:02 + (1 day)

Hull City V Watford

13:15:01

04:38:48 + (1 day)

Hull City V WBA

14:11:56

02:33:49 + (1 day)

Hull City V West Ham

13:20:38

04:16:37 + (1 day)

Leicester City V Bournemouth

13:09:56

01:08:35 + (1 day)

Leicester City V Burnley

13:30:04

00:04:16 + (1 day)

Leicester City V Everton

13:33:10

04:25:20 + (1 day)

Leicester City V Hull City

13:47:42

01:34:41 + (1 day)

Leicester City V Liverpool

13:35:50

04:20:02 + (1 day)

Leicester City V Middlesbrough

13:18:30

03:51:31 + (1 day)

Leicester City V Southampton

13:39:35

00:50:18 + (1 day)

Leicester City V Sunderland

13:04:22

04:56:38 + (1 day)

Leicester City V Swansea

12:42:50

06:33:45 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Arsenal

14:17:56

03:03:32 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Bournemouth

11:48:18

05:33:42 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Chelsea

13:36:11

02:27:58 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Crystal Palace

13:49:46

03:32:03 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Hull City

13:24:42

06:31:56 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Leicester City

13:50:50

03:32:52 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Middlesbrough

13:43:52

02:22:09 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Southampton

12:26:57

05:06:10 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Sunderland

12:51:44

03:48:24 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Swansea

11:41:34

08:27:20 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Tottenham Hotspur

13:46:05

03:14:21 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Watford

14:03:32

04:33:38 + (1 day)

Liverpool V West Ham

13:35:41

03:34:12 + (1 day)

Manchester City V Arsenal

14:34:28

02:49:00 + (1 day)

Manchester City V Bournemouth

12:02:50

05:01:16 + (1 day)

Manchester City V Chelsea

14:20:48

02:14:26 + (1 day)

Manchester City V Crystal Palace

14:03:18

03:22:31 + (1 day)

Manchester City V Leicester City

14:35:18

02:07:20 + (1 day)

Manchester City V Middlesbrough

14:38:24

01:57:46 + (1 day)

Manchester City V Southampton

12:51:29

04:41:02 + (1 day)

Manchester City V Swansea

12:20:06

07:54:54 + (1 day)

Manchester City V Tottenham Hotspur

14:23:11

03:02:49 + (1 day)

Manchester City V Watford

14:18:04

03:32:06 + (1 day)

Manchester City V West Ham

13:54:57

03:20:40 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Arsenal

14:23:08

03:00:01 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Bournemouth

11:51:30

05:15:32 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Chelsea

14:09:28

02:25:46 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Crystal Palace

13:51:58

03:33:32 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Leicester City

14:28:17

02:29:36 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Middlesbrough

14:29:23

02:21:06 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Southampton

12:34:13

04:55:18 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Sunderland

14:00:15

00:03:54 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Swansea

12:05:05

08:09:10 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Tottenham Hotspur

14:11:51

03:13:50 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Watford

14:06:44

03:43:26 + (1 day)

Manchester United V West Ham

13:43:37

03:32:00 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Arsenal

13:39:52

02:54:19 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Bournemouth

10:47:10

07:04:00 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Burnley

14:08:14

00:06:41 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Chelsea

13:12:59

02:43:16 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Crystal Palace

12:55:34

03:17:34 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Everton

13:31:20

02:50:45 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Leicester City

13:47:34

02:58:04 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Liverpool

13:29:00

02:45:27 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Southampton

11:33:45

05:23:50 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Stoke City

13:13:02

03:52:37 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Swansea

10:34:00

08:09:13 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Tottenham Hotspur

13:21:27

03:00:36 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Watford

12:52:16

03:10:25 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V WBA

13:50:15

03:53:26 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V West Ham

12:57:53

03:38:06 + (1 day)

Southampton V Burnley

10:59:34

04:51:51 + (1 day)

Southampton V Everton

12:11:04

04:10:35 + (1 day)

Southampton V Hull City

12:12:44

08:03:39 + (1 day)

Southampton V Leicester City

13:35:18

02:29:29 + (1 day)

Southampton V Liverpool

12:08:44

04:05:17 + (1 day)

Southampton V Manchester City

12:30:56

04:23:59 + (1 day)

Southampton V Manchester United

12:27:52

03:32:20 + (1 day)

Southampton V Middlesbrough

11:43:24

05:58:46 + (1 day)

Southampton V Stoke City

12:55:46

05:12:27 + (1 day)

Southampton V Sunderland

11:05:16

05:53:53 + (1 day)

Southampton V Swansea

13:00:44

06:01:00 + (1 day)

Southampton V WBA

14:03:59

02:17:16 + (1 day)

Stoke City V Bournemouth

12:26:04

01:41:01 + (1 day)

Stoke City V Hull City

13:47:28

05:57:32 + (1 day)

Stoke City V Leicester City

14:38:36

03:20:22 + (1 day)

Stoke City V Middlesbrough

13:13:38

04:09:12 + (1 day)

Stoke City V Southampton

12:49:14

00:55:44 + (1 day)

Stoke City V Sunderland

12:41:56

05:50:04 + (1 day)

Stoke City V Swansea

12:34:58

07:27:11 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Arsenal

13:35:33

03:33:56 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Bournemouth

11:05:51

07:28:19 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Burnley

13:08:55

00:31:00 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Chelsea

12:41:40

03:22:53 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Crystal Palace

12:52:15

03:57:11 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Everton

12:52:01

03:30:22 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Hull City

14:05:11

07:23:26 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Leicester City

13:28:15

03:22:23 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Liverpool

12:54:41

03:25:04 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Southampton

11:29:26

07:08:05 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Stoke City

12:53:43

04:32:14 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Swansea

10:14:41

08:10:57 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Tottenham Hotspur

13:18:08

03:40:13 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Watford

12:29:57

03:50:02 + (1 day)

Sunderland V WBA

13:30:56

04:33:03 + (1 day)

Sunderland V West Ham

12:47:11

04:17:43 + (1 day)

Swansea V Arsenal

13:28:30

02:34:52 + (1 day)

Swansea V Bournemouth

12:23:44

05:35:37 + (1 day)

Swansea V Burnley

11:14:42

07:56:42 + (1 day)

Swansea V Chelsea

13:42:42

01:59:18 + (1 day)

Swansea V Crystal Palace

12:49:39

03:03:23 + (1 day)

Swansea V Everton

12:24:21

08:03:17 + (1 day)

Swansea V Hull City

10:55:38

08:42:09 + (1 day)

Swansea V Leicester City

12:26:16

06:29:03 + (1 day)

Swansea V Liverpool

12:22:01

08:00:37 + (1 day)

Swansea V Manchester City

12:17:03

07:24:12 + (1 day)

Swansea V Manchester United

12:13:59

07:37:47 + (1 day)

Swansea V Middlesbrough

10:26:18

08:44:57 + (1 day)

Swansea V Southampton

13:10:45

05:15:23 + (1 day)

Swansea V Stoke City

12:52:35

07:20:35 + (1 day)

Swansea V Sunderland

10:12:10

09:05:05 + (1 day)

Swansea V Tottenham Hotspur

13:13:05

02:45:41 + (1 day)

Swansea V Watford

12:42:58

03:30:27 + (1 day)

Swansea V WBA

13:48:53

05:34:28 + (1 day)

Swansea V West Ham

12:52:08

03:05:32 + (1 day)

Tottenham Hotspur V Burnley

13:01:15

03:44:25 + (1 day)

Tottenham Hotspur V Everton

14:11:44

03:03:09 + (1 day)

Tottenham Hotspur V Hull City

13:52:01

06:06:13 + (1 day)

Tottenham Hotspur V Liverpool

14:08:31

02:57:51 + (1 day)

Tottenham Hotspur V Manchester City

14:18:56

03:16:33 + (1 day)

Tottenham Hotspur V Manchester United

14:07:21

03:31:54 + (1 day)

Tottenham Hotspur V Middlesbrough

13:37:41

03:58:29 + (1 day)

Tottenham Hotspur V Stoke City

14:41:33

03:18:19 + (1 day)

Tottenham Hotspur V Sunderland

12:53:33

04:05:10 + (1 day)

Tottenham Hotspur V Swansea

13:06:01

04:36:04 + (1 day)

Watford V Burnley

12:46:21

00:04:04 + (1 day)

Watford V Everton

13:49:22

03:33:08 + (1 day)

Watford V Hull City

13:13:02

06:59:12 + (1 day)

Watford V Liverpool

13:47:02

03:27:50 + (1 day)

Watford V Middlesbrough

13:00:42

02:34:56 + (1 day)

Watford V Sunderland

12:17:34

04:10:03 + (1 day)

Watford V Swansea

12:43:20

04:56:33 + (1 day)

WBA V Hull City

13:46:05

04:27:13 + (1 day)

WBA V Middlesbrough

13:16:45

03:18:16 + (1 day)

WBA V Sunderland

13:02:37

05:23:23 + (1 day)

WBA V Swansea

13:39:05

07:15:30 + (1 day)

West Ham V Burnley

12:40:33

04:01:58 + (1 day)

West Ham V Everton

13:45:32

03:20:42 + (1 day)

West Ham V Hull City

13:33:29

06:33:46 + (1 day)

West Ham V Liverpool

13:42:19

03:15:24 + (1 day)

West Ham V Manchester City

13:56:44

03:34:06 + (1 day)

West Ham V Manchester United

13:45:09

03:47:26 + (1 day)

West Ham V Middlesbrough

13:14:09

04:14:01 + (1 day)

West Ham V Stoke City

14:15:21

03:37:33 + (1 day)

West Ham V Sunderland

12:27:51

04:14:00 + (1 day)

West Ham V Swansea

12:56:29

04:41:06 + (1 day)

Failed 1pm Sunday Kick-offs

fixture

Time Leaving ‘Home’

Time arriving ‘Home’

Bournemouth V Burnley

04:37:49

21:59:54

Bournemouth V Everton

06:14:43

20:52:53

Bournemouth V Hull City

06:14:53

20:56:07

Bournemouth V Liverpool

06:02:23

20:59:37

Bournemouth V Manchester City

06:53:48

20:49:48

Bournemouth V Manchester United

06:06:47

21:00:23

Bournemouth V Middlesbrough

05:16:10

21:35:57

Bournemouth V Sunderland

05:09:51

23:00:36

Bournemouth V Swansea

06:34:48

20:12:48

Burnley V Bournemouth

05:46:14

21:41:48

Burnley V Southampton

06:28:49

21:10:06

Burnley V Swansea

23:25:13 – (1 day)

22:01:31

Everton V Bournemouth

06:49:42

20:38:40

Everton V Swansea

00:22:51

20:59:23

Hull City V Bournemouth

23:36:41 – (1 day)

21:32:56

Hull City V Southampton

00:19:16

20:55:10

Hull City V Swansea

22:52:24 – (1 day)

23:06:48

Leicester City V Burnley

06:31:09

19:30:51

Leicester City V Middlesbrough

06:39:43

19:29:30

Leicester City V Sunderland

06:49:35

19:55:38

Leicester City V Swansea

00:15:11

20:03:45

Liverpool V Bournemouth

06:45:35

20:56:40

Liverpool V Swansea

00:25:47

21:17:23

Manchester City V Swansea

03:13:50

20:24:51

Manchester United V Bournemouth

06:54:34

20:40:09

Manchester United V Swansea

03:27:56

20:25:44

Middlesbrough V Bournemouth

02:55:13

21:30:54

Middlesbrough V Southampton

06:10:22

20:53:08

Middlesbrough V Swansea

00:20:47

23:19:35

Southampton V Burnley

05:07:54

21:10:21

Southampton V Everton

06:51:55

20:44:56

Southampton V Hull City

06:52:05

20:20:46

Southampton V Liverpool

06:39:35

20:42:12

Southampton V Manchester United

06:43:59

20:22:26

Southampton V Middlesbrough

05:46:15

20:53:36

Southampton V Sunderland

05:56:44

21:31:44

Stoke City V Bournemouth

06:39:52

20:37:41

Stoke City V Sunderland

06:44:50

20:06:15

Stoke City V Swansea

01:07:04

20:24:22

Sunderland V Bournemouth

02:21:51

21:52:11

Sunderland V Southampton

06:08:44

21:20:29

Sunderland V Swansea

00:19:03

23:17:54

Sunderland V WBA

06:51:56

20:22:04

Swansea V Bournemouth

06:56:32

20:30:29

Swansea V Burnley

22:45:59 – (1 day)

21:49:18

Swansea V Hull City

23:14:02 – (1 day)

05:48:25 + (1 day)

Swansea V Liverpool

06:55:40

20:56:37

Swansea V Manchester United

06:59:28

20:49:47

Swansea V Middlesbrough

23:45:03 – (1 day)

02:51:50 + (1 day)

Swansea V Sunderland

23:24:55 – (1 day)

03:27:05 + (1 day)

WBA V Swansea

06:35:23

19:05:30

Failed 4pm Sunday Kick-offs

fixture

Time Leaving ‘Home’

Time arriving ‘Home’

Bournemouth V Burnley

08:47:06

05:02:23 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Everton

10:04:43

04:03:53 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Hull City

09:35:51

05:51:57 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Liverpool

09:55:31

04:06:05 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Manchester City

10:16:12

04:07:47 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Manchester United

09:58:35

03:58:25 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Middlesbrough

09:04:41

04:00:58 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Stoke City

10:47:19

03:56:40 + (1 day)

Bournemouth V Sunderland

09:14:33

04:46:05 + (1 day)

Burnley V Bournemouth

09:21:14

06:06:49 + (1 day)

Burnley V Leicester City

11:28:11

01:10:48 + (1 day)

Burnley V Middlesbrough

12:24:46

01:52:07 + (1 day)

Burnley V Southampton

09:43:09

02:29:55 + (1 day)

Burnley V Sunderland

11:59:38

01:58:22 + (1 day)

Burnley V Swansea

09:18:26

05:06:47 + (1 day)

Chelsea V Burnley

11:16:30

03:28:38 + (1 day)

Chelsea V Sunderland

11:39:43

03:58:25 + (1 day)

Crystal Palace V Burnley

11:04:50

03:43:32 + (1 day)

Crystal Palace V Sunderland

11:23:03

04:15:05 + (1 day)

Everton V Bournemouth

10:24:22

00:53:42 + (1 day)

Everton V Middlesbrough

11:54:52

00:58:52 + (1 day)

Everton V Sunderland

11:15:44

02:28:56 + (1 day)

Everton V Swansea

09:41:34

00:31:23 + (1 day)

Hull City V Bournemouth

09:51:12

03:10:04 + (1 day)

Hull City V Burnley

12:41:26

03:08:04 + (1 day)

Hull City V Southampton

10:33:47

01:41:57 + (1 day)

Hull City V Stoke City

12:17:33

03:21:57 + (1 day)

Hull City V Swansea

08:08:53

04:39:39 + (1 day)

Leicester City V Middlesbrough

10:22:30

02:06:31 + (1 day)

Leicester City V Sunderland

10:39:21

03:02:38 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Bournemouth

10:06:22

00:58:34 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Middlesbrough

11:51:52

01:06:53 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Sunderland

11:12:44

02:33:03 + (1 day)

Liverpool V Swansea

09:31:34

00:36:15 + (1 day)

Manchester City V Bournemouth

10:38:54

00:58:10 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Bournemouth

10:22:53

03:06:57 + (1 day)

Manchester United V Southampton

10:40:31

01:27:35 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Bournemouth

09:13:10

05:40:53 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Burnley

12:16:55

03:08:10 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Leicester City

11:55:34

02:10:04 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Southampton

09:55:45

02:03:59 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Stoke City

11:46:32

03:22:03 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V Swansea

08:02:22

06:47:28 + (1 day)

Middlesbrough V WBA

11:11:59

01:54:51 + (1 day)

Southampton V Burnley

09:21:54

04:40:26 + (1 day)

Southampton V Everton

10:35:04

03:41:56 + (1 day)

Southampton V Hull City

10:06:12

05:14:45 + (1 day)

Southampton V Liverpool

10:25:52

03:44:08 + (1 day)

Southampton V Manchester City

10:51:00

03:45:50 + (1 day)

Southampton V Manchester United

10:33:23

03:05:11 + (1 day)

Southampton V Middlesbrough

09:33:24

03:47:38 + (1 day)

Southampton V Stoke City

11:22:07

03:24:37 + (1 day)

Southampton V Sunderland

09:43:16

04:22:53 + (1 day)

Stoke City V Middlesbrough

11:59:04

01:36:31 + (1 day)

Stoke City V Sunderland

10:49:56

03:01:10 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Bournemouth

09:10:51

06:02:12 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Burnley

11:55:36

10:27:29 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Leicester City

11:23:15

02:22:23 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Southampton

09:38:26

02:25:18 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Stoke City

11:29:13

03:55:22 + (1 day)

Sunderland V Swansea

07:37:03

05:07:19 + (1 day)

Sunderland V WBA

10:24:40

01:52:10 + (1 day)

Swansea V Bournemouth

09:54:33

03:18:45 + (1 day)

Swansea V Burnley

08:57:42

05:31:25 + (1 day)

Swansea V Everton

10:20:00

04:36:00 + (1 day)

Swansea V Hull City

08:08:02

07:07:52 + (1 day)

Swansea V Leicester City

10:49:14

03:33:24 + (1 day)

Swansea V Liverpool

10:17:40

04:36:06 + (1 day)

Swansea V Manchester City

10:33:05

03:55:54 + (1 day)

Swansea V Manchester United

10:17:01

03:46:32 + (1 day)

Swansea V Middlesbrough

08:27:20

07:04:40 + (1 day)

Swansea V Southampton

10:37:08

02:21:19 + (1 day)

Swansea V Stoke City

11:00:25

04:18:23 + (1 day)

Swansea V Sunderland

08:06:12

07:35:48 + (1 day)

Tottenham Hotspur V Burnley

11:21:20

03:22:39 + (1 day)

Tottenham Hotspur V Sunderland

11:42:03

03:53:35 + (1 day)

Watford V Burnley

10:51:51

03:09:25 + (1 day)

Watford V Middlesbrough

11:30:12

01:28:48 + (1 day)

Watford V Sunderland

11:10:04

02:56:43 + (1 day)

WBA V Middlesbrough

11:04:45

02:12:08 + (1 day)

WBA V Sunderland

10:25:37

03:47:23 + (1 day)

West Ham V Burnley

11:05:48

03:39:02 + (1 day)

West Ham V Sunderland

11:24:01

04:08:07 + (1 day)

In summary there are a great deal fixtures which will cause a headache for committed away fans who use public transport. The final table shows fixtures who failed every test and therefore should only really be played at 3pm on a Saturday.

fixture

Bournemouth V Burnley

Bournemouth V Everton

Bournemouth V Liverpool

Bournemouth V Middlesbrough

Bournemouth V Sunderland

Burnley V Bournemouth

Burnley V Swansea

Everton V Bournemouth

Hull City V Bournemouth

Hull City V Swansea

Liverpool V Bournemouth

Manchester United V Bournemouth

Middlesbrough V Bournemouth

Middlesbrough V Swansea

Southampton V Burnley

Southampton V Sunderland

Sunderland V Bournemouth

Sunderland V Southampton

Sunderland V Swansea

Swansea V Burnley

Swansea V Hull City

Swansea V Middlesbrough

Swansea V Sunderland

If you think you or someone else would be interested in exploring the science behind this work, you should have a look at the Newcastle University degrees in BSc Geographic Information Science and BSc Surveying and Mapping Science. These degrees have excellent employment prospects, lots of field and practical work and consistently high levels of student satisfaction. I myself am a graduate of the GIS programme

The volume of a teams away following is often used as measure for the “size” of a club and is heavily debated amongst football fans. But their are many factors that influence this, not least their proximity to other clubs.

Hartlepool Away Fans making 400-mile trip to Plymouth away to watch their side lose 5-0

With the Football league last week releasing statistics showing the average away attendance for each team playing in the championship (shown below), I looked at whether this was effected by the clubs accessibility to other clubs and how long fans were spending travelling.

Team

Away Attendance

Leeds

2807

Middlesbrough

2515

Sheffield Wednesday

2510

Derby

2125

Burnley

1911

Birmingham

1779

Brighton

1658

Preston

1506

Wolves

1470

Nottingham Forest

1443

Hull

1393

Ipswich

1383

Bristol City

1263

QPR

1204

Huddersfield

1128

Blackburn

1106

Brentford

1073

Rotherham

1041

Reading

1040

Fulham

988

Bolton

911

Cardiff

748

Charlton

637

MK Dons

636

With Leeds being located in within fairly close proximity to a number of the northern teams, and Leeds railway station being well connected I wanted to look at the whether this contributed to their loyal away following.

So I used the Google Travel API to look at the total time a football fan would spend travelling if they went on public transport to every away game. The results are below.

Team

Time Spent Travelling

Cardiff City

6 Days 3 Hours 44 Minutes 14 Seconds

Brighton and Hove Albion

6 Days 1 Hours 23 Minutes 36 Seconds

Ipswich Town

5 Days 23 Hours 17 Minutes 34 Seconds

Middlesbrough

5 Days 21 Hours 25 Minutes 26 Seconds

Charlton Athletic

5 Days 11 Hours 18 Minutes 10 Seconds

Bristol City

5 Days 10 Hours 22 Minutes 50 Seconds

Hull City

5 Days 2 Hours 57 Minutes 20 Seconds

Fulham

4 Days 22 Hours 6 Minutes 38 Seconds

Burnley

4 Days 20 Hours 5 Minutes 32 Seconds

Reading

4 Days 19 Hours 58 Minutes 32 Seconds

Preston North End

4 Days 19 Hours 52 Minutes 22 Seconds

Queens Park Rangers

4 Days 18 Hours 44 Minutes 38 Seconds

Brentford

4 Days 18 Hours 13 Minutes 12 Seconds

Blackburn Rovers

4 Days 17 Hours 38 Minutes 16 Seconds

Huddersfield Town

4 Days 11 Hours 55 Minutes 58 Seconds

Bolton Wanderers

4 Days 11 Hours 17 Minutes 36 Seconds

Leeds United

4 Days 7 Hours 2 Minutes 12 Seconds

MK Dons

4 Days 5 Hours 1 Minutes 4 Seconds

Sheffield Wednesday

4 Days 4 Hours 30 Minutes 54 Seconds

Wolverhampton Wanderers

4 Days 0 Hours 30 Minutes 48 Seconds

Rotherham United

3 Days 23 Hours 23 Minutes 6 Seconds

Birmingham City

3 Days 19 Hours 59 Minutes 4 Seconds

Nottingham Forest

3 Days 18 Hours 12 Minutes 6 Seconds

Derby County

3 Days 17 Hours 41 Minutes 6 Seconds

From this it appears that there is very little correlation between the average away attendance and time spent travelling especially with Middlesbrough’s travel time and attendance being so high.

As a final thought I looked at using the travel times for ranking the teams be the number of “fan hours” spent travelling.

Following our blog post looking at the distances of football grounds from their nearest railway station, we had a think about other interesting football-related analysis that we could do. Having previously been a holder of an away season ticket, I thought that one interesting comparison might be to investigate which football fans would spend the longest on public transport to visit away games.

In order to do this analysis we used the Google Maps Distance Matrix API (https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/distance-matrix/ ) to calculate the time and distance you would have to travel on public transport between each football club, to arrive at 2pm on a Saturday. The locations of the football grounds were used as the start and end points for each journey since we obviously don’t know where supporters actually live!

Below is a list of the 5 longest away trips between any pair of Football League or Premier League clubs. You could look at this as the nightmare FA Cup draw if you’re committed to going to the game, and the ones you really don’t want to be switched to a Friday night for TV coverage.

team1

team2

duration

length

Plymouth Argyle

Newcastle United

6 hours 39 mins

657.287Km

Plymouth Argyle

Sunderland

6 hours 29 mins

647.920Km

Torquay United

Newcastle United

6 hours 22 mins

620.825Km

Plymouth Argyle

Hartlepool United

6 hours 13 mins

622.370Km

Carlisle United

Plymouth Argyle

6 hours 13 mins

626.729Km

The 5 quickest are below – some of these would likely be quicker to walk!

When I wrote the blog post “Settling a Coffee Break Debate – Football Travel Distance” It was done to do just that, settle a coffee break debate. Getting the Football Supporters’ Federation to share it came as an afterthought. In doing so the true power of the crowd was unleashed and we received several comments from fans pointing out minor errors in the results. Mainly missing railway stations or errors in the location of the football ground. As such I wanted to prove that the Geospatial Engineering group are nothing short of perfectionists and rectify these results.

Firstly I had to retrieve all the locations of railway stations in the UK. I did this by using the OpenStreetMap extended API and download all features in the UK bounding box that contained the tag “railway=station”. This gave me a selection of nodes and polygons. I generated centroids of the polygons and merged them with the nodes. As a few commenters pointed out the last piece of analysis didn’t include tram, light railway and subways. So for completeness I also carried out the same process on features marked “railway=tram_stop” (light rail and subway stations are included in “railway=station”).

I then had to retrieve the locations of football stadiums. Again I used the OpenStreetMap extended API and downloaded all features that contained both “sport=soccer” & “leisure=stadium” tags. And likewise generated centroid of the polygons and merged with the points. However due to either the stadium not being tagged as such or simply not mapped out yet a few grounds were missing so in these places I have used the previous locations. I also had the problem that the openstreetmap features didn’t contain information on the club and the stadium name were in some cases slightly different to the names I had stored ( e.g. Emirates, and Emirates Stadium) so I had to do some fuzzy text matching to complete this mapping.

Lowestoft fc’s ground is mapped out but Norwich City’s isn’t

Once I had the 2 new datasets it was just a simple case of calculating the nearest station/stop to each stadium and the distance between them. Again I achieved this by loading both datasets into PostgreSQL/PostGIS. Below are the full set of results. With the representing the distance from the centre of station/stop to the centre of the stadium, so not necessarily the distance a fan would walk. Also this does not take into consideration that the station or stop might not be open on match day.

As I imagine happens at many work places the coffee break for the Geospatial group often brings up some lively debates. Whilst today’s debate itself wasn’t exactly lively it did pose an interesting question. Which football ground is the further away from a mainline railway station? The answer put out there Hillsborough. Not content with this guesswork I ran a simple piece of analysis. Luckily we have the football grounds from the work we carries out with the football tweets (previous blog & site) and the the railway stations from work carried out for ITRC (http://www.itrc.org.uk/).

Football League Stadia

GB Railway Stations

Therefore all i had to do was look at the nearest railway station to each ground and calculate the distance between them. I did this by loading both datasets into PostgreSQL + PostGIS and performing a few simple queries. The results are below: Whilst Hillsborough wasn’t the furthest it wasn’t far off.

Ideally we’d look at the distance along the UK road network and not straight line distance. But this seems somewhat overkill for answering this question.

As part of my work on the CARIWIG project I have been lucky enough to visit the Caribbean on 4 separate occasions. These, despite the speculations from my colleagues, have been work packed trips with the majority of my time being spent in a windowless heavily air-conditioned room. My latest trip saw myself and Phil James from Geospatial engineering visit Barbados where we took part in the CARIWIG training event (which took place in various windowless rooms).

We were there presenting the work that we have done putting together the CARIWIG portal which is a portal designed to let the user visualise, graph and download both historical and simulated future cliamte datasets, as well as allowing the user to run a number of simulations across the region. For slightly more information see here

Gridded data viewer on the portal

Tropical storm model on the portal

Over the 3 days participants were introduced to the tools put together for the project and how they are run on the portal. They were then given time to use these tools to conduct their own mini case studies, with them then reporting their findings back to the group.

Overall the event was a great success with participants fully engaging with the tools put together and seeing their potential. And from a personal point of view, they liked the interface and found it intuitive. Plus there were 0 internal server errors, even when a entire room of people all ran the tropical storm model at the same time!